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Phil Foden’s on fire. Rodri’s inevitable. Manchester City are champions (again).
Also on the way:
🍾 Four in a row for superstitious Guardiola
❓ Can Arsenal get better again?
😢 Klopp’s emotional goodbye, De Zerbi’s sudden exit
👀 Bayer Neverlusen hit 51 not out
The Greatest? 🏆🏆🏆🏆
Getty Images; design by Dan Goldfarb
Was it the turtleneck jumper that did it for Manchester City? Or was it Phil Foden?
The choice is yours and it doesn’t stop there because City’s supply of lucky charms is endless.
Take Rodri — City’s individual invincible — as another example, scoring the same goal yesterday as he did the last time the club won the Premier League title on the final day of the season in 2022: the cultured, side-foot slot from 20 yards that looks too tame to beat the goalkeeper but nestles inside the near post.
City have a habit of making processional success look easy but this title, their fourth in a row and Guardiola’s sixth across his eight seasons in Manchester, took them to more painful places than most. It made Guardiola superstitious about his clothing (if you wondered why he insisted on wearing a thick woollen sweater in scorching heat). And it did not come without City navigating some tricky pressure points.
One of them involved Foden, who conceded a stoppage-time penalty in a potentially costly 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace in December. Back then, Foden’s form was mixed, City were dropping points all over the place and Arsenal’s form ensured that every point would be precious.
What happened next was a pivotal reset. City flew out to win FIFA’s Club World Cup and Foden became talismanic. The midfielder’s two early strikes against West Ham United yesterday were indicative of his influence, killing any chance of drama before tension had time to rise.
Fo-done
Have a glance at Foden’s opener against West Ham. Honestly, how many times have you seen him score that goal — the little nudge to the left to open up space to shoot, followed by a rising finish into the top corner?
Foden has it all: great feet, extraordinary awareness of what’s around him and the ability to hit the ball so cleanly.
It’s funny to recall the time when Guardiola was blooding him gently and resisting the clamour to give him more minutes. Holding back a prospect runs the risk of a Cole Palmer situation developing but City have tapered Foden’s development beautifully.
At present, there is hardly a better footballer in Europe and there’s no better footballer in England. Foden took the Premier League’s player-of-the-season award over the weekend and as strong as the shortlist was, his run-in made him a shoo-in.
Where do they rank?
“In terms of numbers, nobody has been better than us — the records, the goals, the points and four in a row,” Guardiola said after the match.
He’s right, but ranking the best all-time Premier League sides is never easy. It’s not always apples with apples. Suffice to say, though, the Guardiola era at City compares to any other — and there’s an argument to say that this is dominance on a new scale.
But as we wrote in Friday’s newsletter, there’s still that elephant in the room: the juxtaposition of the 115 Premier League charges City are fighting to fend off.
Philip Buckingham has explained where we stand. Two things to note in his article: an ex-Premier League CEO saying he had “never seen a bunch of people more confident that they have nothing to answer for” than City, and the lawyer laying out four potential outcomes.
Arsenal’s Point To Prove 📈
I’d pay to be a fly on the wall as Arsenal’s squad re-enact The Traitors TV series. All Mikel Arteta needs is a Claudia Winkleman fringe.
Arsenal, evidently, are in rude health. Their players seem uber-tight, their football is majestic at its best and Arteta’s head is in the right place. “Don’t be satisfied,” he told everyone after the title went City’s way by a nose.
There isn’t much more they could have done this season. Only twice has the second-placed team in the Premier League amassed more than 89 points. The fact Guardiola last sucked up a league defeat in December sums up the City juggernaut.
Arteta has no choice but to draw breath and go again. Recruitment-wise, he could do with better left-back cover for Takehiro Tomiyasu than Oleksandr Zinchenko, although a fit Jurrien Timber can cover that base. A more recognised No 9 might help too — but a tally of 91 league goals speaks for itself.
The problem lies elsewhere. The problem is City. Arsenal, through no fault of their own, have picked the wrong time to be this good.
Emotional Goodbyes 👋
Across England, managers were saying farewell over the weekend.
Jurgen Klopp told the Anfield crowd he’ll never walk alone again, with his long goodbye at Liverpool now over. The club will be fortunate if Arne Slot is such a perfect fit. David Moyes signed off at West Ham United. Soon-to-be USWNT coach Emma Hayes took her leave of Chelsea with another Women’s Super League title.
All of that was telegraphed. What came as a surprise was Brighton announcing that Roberto De Zerbi would leave the club by mutual consent after yesterday’s game against Manchester United.
It’s not actually that much of a shock — De Zerbi and Brighton’s owner haven’t been seeing eye-to-eye and a lot of the head coach’s rhetoric over the past six months made him sound dissatisfied and restless.
All the same, De Zerbi’s reputation has soared at Brighton — yet his departure will earn the club no compensation (and top coaches are often worth millions).
De Zerbi will doubtless land a nice job elsewhere. The saving grace for Brighton is they’re a dab hand at finding coaching talent.
Around The Athletic FC 🌎
Quiz Answer❓
Friday’s quiz question asked which two players were missing from the following list — 2010-11: Cristian Riveros; 2011-12: ??????; 2012-13: Urby Emanuelson; 2013-14: Chris David; 2014-15: Loic Remy; 2015-16: Chris Smalling; 2016-17: Michy Batshuayi; 2017-18: ??????
The answers are Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus — scorers of the latest goals in those Premier League seasons. I was nowhere with this one.
(Top photo: Visionhaus/Getty Images)
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